Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1887-04-21

When great number of these come
out of cooled mass of air, they form
vapor drops large enough to affect light.
Then we see clouds, which are only a
collection of particles of water, each
particle so small that it still floats in
the air. If great quantity of concealed
water is given out by reason of much cold
air, or other cause, the cloud or vapor
drops run into each other, and being
then too heavy to float, they fall down
as rain. At night the radiation of heat
from the ground and grass causes them
to cool faster than the air loses its heat,
and the colder grass cools the air next
to it, which gives out some of its con-
cealed water as dew. If the air is quite
warm and the earth unusually cool, a
layer of air several feet high is cooled
so much that enough of water comes
ont to form fog. Cog layers which
are the same as clouds, are seldom
| more than ten to thirty feet high.)
! VIOLENT AND GENTLE SHOWERS.
Right here let the reader clearly
understand why we have gentle and
violent showers. When the air is still
and cools near the earth we have only a
fog. When small currents of differeut
temperatures meet here and there in
the upper regions we have separate
clouds. When larger, slow moving
masses of air of two temperatures meet,
we have the heavens covered with clouds.
When the winds drive together consid-
cradle masses of air differing a good
deal in temperature, the giving up of
watery PARTICLES by the mass of warm
air, quickly cooled, is so great that rain
results. if two swiftly moving
masses of hot and cold air come sudden
ly together, there is so much water
given up that we have quick, violent
rainfall. That happened yesterday
afternoon, right where we are, on the
plains of Western Kansas. The day
was excessively warm with scarcely a
breeze. and the hot air rose high up.
| At SIX O clock P. NJ, from some cause
current of cold air came from the
northwest with great velocity. There
were no mountains or forests on the
level plains to check its rapid flight.
| As it rushed into the hot air above us,
so much of it was suddenly cooled that
the rain came down almost in a sheet
The swift air current had gone by be:
fore the rain drops had time even to
reach the earth, and there was but one
dash. In ten minutes the sky was en-
tirely clear, but the atmosphere was
wonderfully cooled If there had been
on the plains any trees, fences, houses,
tall grass, corn or other crops, any OF
all of these would have helped check the
swift air or wind current at every mile
and rod; it would have moved so much
slower that our dashing sheet of rain
would no doubt have been prolonged to
gentle drizzling shower Of perhaps an
hours duration. The drizzling water
would have had time is sink into the
earth. AS it was, the sheet of water
ran in torrents down into the ''draws'
or hollows, and off to the river.
Though an iuch of rain fell, on going
out and examining some prairie sod
we found it not even moistened half an
inch deep. There was water enough fell
to have penetrated foot deep, if it had
had time. We repeat to fix it in the
mind for use further on, that if there
had been anything, even tall prairie
grass extending dozen or twenty miles
to the northwest of US, that wind cur
rent would have chafed against it, and
been "slowed down" so that the sheet
rain would have been so slow and gentle a
shower that the soil could have absorbed
most of it, and stored it for the roots
of plants.
MOUNTAINS STEALING MOISTURE.
If the reader now understands that
any cooling of the air makes it give up
concealed drops of water, or watery
vapor, it will be easy to see why there
is an arid belt along the eastern side Of
the Rocky Mountains and Sierra New
adas. The suns rays do not warm pure,
transparent air in passing through it.
The rays, when absorbed by the earth,
warm that. The air touching the sur
face is warmed by it, and becoming
lighter by the expansion, it rises up
ward until it gets cooled down by MIN
Cling with the cold upper air. AS it
rises other cold air flows into its place,
gets warmed and also rises, and this
keeps being done right at the earth S
surface. But not enough air gets thus
warmed to rise very high. Only few
miles above us, it is probably always
colder than at the North pole. If we
could travel towards the moon, we
should freeze is death in the cold air
before we had gone ten miles away from
the earth. So it is that on mountains
from four or five miles high, it is so
cold that snow never melts. The tops
of mountains only a couple of miles
high are very much colder than the
lower ground. Now most of the winds
in the regions named above, blow from
west to east. In passing over the
Rockies and Sierras, they are so cooled
that they give up good deal Of their
concealed water, and have little to spare
until they are replenished. These cool
mountain tops thus steal the moisture
naturally belonging to the soil. So there
must always be an arid belt along the